Over sixty members of the local music community got together on January 26th at Giovanni's to discuss major changes to the RAMI Awards and to launch a new local music organization: the RAMI Association.

The RAMI Association is open to all Rockford area musicians, sound technicians, music venue operators, music organizations, music promotion companies and music industry related media/journalists.

The RAMI Association has been founded to:

1) Organize community events to recognize and honor Rockford area musicians and technicians.

2) Assist musicians, musical organizations and venues in promoting themselves and the area music community.

3) Provide scholarship opportunities for graduating high school seniors pursuing advanced study in music.

The Association will hold quarterly meeting for the entire membership.  Plans are in place to offer seminars a wide variety of topics including: promotions, marketing, tax responsibilities, web site design and more.  The first membership meeting will be held in May.

Several major changes to the voting procedures of the RAMI Awards were discussed.  Association members will now have input on the nominating and voting procedures.  A new system to handle the Awards voting will be developed for the 2007 Awards balloting.

For more information on the RAMI Association, you can visit www.ramiassociation.com.